who busted up Griflet was still there, as was all his stuff.
"Yo," said the knight that busted up Griflet.
"Yo yourself," said Arthur. "Are you the dick that's been jousting and killing people?"
"Maybe," said the knight. "A lot of guys were jousting."
"I'm going to hit you until you promise to stop," announced Arthur. He pulled out his sword.
"Hey, swords are fine and all," said the knight. "But I'm actually way better with spears. Sometimes I tell people I'm not just to mess with them, but seeing as how you're challenging me and all, could we do it with spears?"
"Sure," said Arthur. "Except I have zero spears."
"Borrow one of mine," said the knight. "I have like a million extra."
So Arthur grabbed a spear, and they jousted. The knight slammed Arthur pretty well and Arthur the knight likewise, and both spears shattered under the force of it.
"Okay, now with swords," said Arthur.
"I have more spears," said the knight. "C'mon, be a sport."
"Okay, fine," said Arthur, testily. They took new spears and rode at one another again, and this time the knight hammered Arthur quite well and knocked him off his horse.
"I'm okay! I'm okay," said Arthur. "Just got the wind knocked out of me. Now I'm dehorsed, so that's a point for you and now we fight on foot with swords. That's how it goes."
"Yeah, no," said the mystery knight. "I'm going to stay up here."
"Cheater! Why am I surprised?" Arthur lay into him with his sword. Arthur didn't kill the knight's horse because that would have been cheating and made Arthur just as bad as this knight, but he did get the knight unhorsed pretty quick.
"Yeah, well, I let you," said the mystery knight. "Can't really get a guy on foot with a spear from horseback, anyway."
Then Arthur and the mystery knight went fight fight fight with swords. It was awesome, right up until the knight's sword chopped Arthur's sword in half.
"Darn it," said Arthur. "This is the sword someone handed me to knight Sir Griflet with. I should have brought my magic one."
"Yeah, well, you didn't," said the other knight. "Now do you surrender or do I kill you?"
Merlin, who'd been watching this whole battle from the sidelines, called out to Arthur. "Don't choose death! God hates you so when you die you'll go to hell! It'll be terrible! If you surrender you will lose all self-respect! I'm an old wizard and yet I'll outlive you! You slept with your sister!" and many other cheers meant to lift Arthur's spirits.
"I choose neither!" cried Arthur. And he jumped onto the mystery knight, knocked him down, and ripped his helmet off, and it's Pellinore that jackass who stole Arthur's horse. Shocking twist!
Then Arthur and Pellinore rolled around fighting in the dirt, wrestling like boys. Pellinore was definitely getting the upper hand, and things didn't look good for our hero.
So Arthur's lay there, senseless, and he was about to get his skull caved in by Pellinore and Pellinore's enormous heavy sword. Finally Merlin decided to get up and do something useful for once, besides spout spoilers. "Hey, you," he said to Pellinore. "Yeah, you! Quit murdering that guy! He's better than you!"
"Better than me? Who is this guy, anyway?" asked Pellinore.
"It's King Arthur, you idiot!"
"Arthur!" Pellinore was impressed. "The guy whose horse I stole before? I owe him! Obviously I'd better double-kill him!" And Pellinore hefted his sword, about to decapitate Arthur, but then Merlin cast sleep and instead Pellinore needed to lie down for a while.
A few minutes later, Arthur came to, with no permanent brain damage from having been knocked unconscious, so that's how far back that particular genre convention goes, the bashing someone on the head and they collapse but wake up fresh as a daisy after the next commercial break. Arthur came to on the back of Pellinore's horse, behind Merlin.
"Aw, Merlin, did you have to kill him?" asked Arthur, who was king of leaping to conclusions as well as Logris-Britain-England. "He was a really, really good jouster. If he weren't trying to kill me, I'd have tried to hire him. Hmm. Maybe we can make some kind of bargain, you can bring him back to life? I don't have much to offer, just, you know, all of England. I could loan that to you, if you resurrect Pellinore. You want to borrow all of England?"
"Relax," said Merlin. "He's in better shape than you are. He'll be awake in eighteen turns, that's about three hours. I warned you about Pellinore. I remember clearly telling you that he's nine feet tall and breathes fire, metaphorically speaking, and in the future he'll do you a big favor. Also he'll have two sons who will be the second-best and third-best knights, Sir Percivale and Sir Lamorak."
"Can we not have one normal conversation, without you prophesying all over the place?"
"Oh, and also he'll be the one who tells you about how Mordred is going to destroy everything. Try to act surprised when that happens."
"Listen, let's... let's just be quiet for a while."
Merlin didn't take Arthur back to his court. Instead they chilled at a local forest hermit's place for several days while Arthur recuperated and got leeched. A long weekend later he was ready to go, so they hopped on the horse Merlin stole and another horse which, I don't know, the hermit gave them, that sounds plausible. Anyway, they started riding, and straightaway, Arthur started complaining that he didn't have a sword. Pellinore had broken his, you may recall.
"No problem," said Merlin. "Over in that lake there's a sword you can have."
"I thought I was no longer surprised by anything you say," said Arthur. "But that's a little weird."
"Check it out," said Merlin, and pointed. They'd been riding past a lake, nice lake, features included an arm wearing a shining white sleeve sticking straight up out of the middle of the lake, said arm was holding a sword (scabbard included). Also, there was a woman who might have been swimming and might have just been walking on the water, it's hard to say.
"Yeah, a little weird," Arthur said again. "Who is that woman?"
"That's the woman who lives in the lake," Merlin said. "Duh."
"Great, thanks," said Arthur.
"Actually she lives in a magic rock at the bottom of the lake. Very nicely furnished, super comfy. She's coming over here, and she'll give you the sword if you ask for it."
Sure enough, the woman headed over to Arthur and Merlin and said hi. After exchanging pleasantries, Arthur was like, "hey, you know that sword? Can I have it?"
"You're King Arthur, right?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"Hmm. On the one hand it's a nice sword. On the other hand, I don't need it for anything, and I would love to be owed a favor by King Arthur, that sounds super handy," the woman said.
"How about an autograph?"
"No, no, no. One favor to be named later, take it or leave it," said the woman.
"Yeah, okay," said Arthur. "I can't see any way that could backfire on me."
So he and Merlin tied up their horses and they got in a little rowboat and rowed out to the arm, where Arthur took the sword. The arm then retracted down into the water.
"Don't worry about that," said Merlin. "Pay it no mind."
"Way ahead of you," said Arthur. "I'm trying real hard to block out pretty much this whole misadventure, especially all your dire predictions."
A few hours later, Arthur and Merlin rode up the road and came to a familiar-looking tent.
"I recognize this tent," said Arthur. "It's belongs to that villain Pelli–"
"It's the tent of King Pellinore, the knight who beat you up so badly a few days ago," interrupted Merlin. He spoke very quickly so as to prevent Arthur from getting a word in edgewise. "He packed it up and moved it here away from the fountain. Earlier today he met one of the knights in your service, Sir Egglame, that is the man's name, don't make fun, and they jousted which joust I could describe for you now but I'm eliding the jousting in favor of the bare facts. Egglame ran away, on account of otherwise Pellinore would have killed him, so, no fault to Egglame there, and Pellinore ran after him and n
ow they're both halfway to Caerlaeon, and we'll bump into Pellinore up the road in just a few minutes."
"Okay," said Arthur. He was more patient with Merlin than I would have been. "Hey, I can try out this nice new sword on him!" Arthur brightened at the prospect.
"No no no," said Merlin. "He's tired after beating on Egglame and chasing him, and you'd just kill him, which, that's not going to happen because of all the things he's going to do in the future. Best to let him live."
"But –"
"Best, I said, to let him live."
"But –"
"He'll do you a good turn, and his sons also, and also he'll be your brother-in-law soon."
"Fine," said Arthur petulantly. He fiddled with his new sword and scabbard.
"Hrmph," said Merlin. "Which do you like more, the sword or the scabbard?"
"Is this a trick question?" asked Arthur.
"No. I'm just making conversation."
"Obviously the sword is best, because you can kill your enemies with it. The scabbard is just a sword delivery system, like how waffles are just a carrier for butter and syrup."
"Wrong!" cried Merlin. "It was a trick question! The scabbard is a magic scabbard that causes your blood to remain in your body at all times."
"That doesn't sound so useful... no, wait, what if I get cut and start to bleed... or someone puts a leech on me unexpectedly... yeah, okay, I can see how that would be useful."
"Good," said Merlin. "Hold on to that scabbard. Also, hold still for a moment, I'm going to do some magic."
Then Merlin cast invisibility on Arthur, such that when the two of them rode past King Pellinore a few minutes later,